SMS is more compelling.

i think education toolbuilders might learn something more breakthrough-relevant from Cloud (the game) or an MMO than 3D chat rooms.

i’ve played MMOs from Puzzle Pirates to City of Heroes, typed my fingers raw in text chat rooms, contributed to MUDs, MOOs, and other M places, performed a rock concert in Aphaworld, started a “metaphysics of VRML violence” movement in Lycos’ PointWorld, had friends conned out their 2D heads (was that in The Palace?), been a victim of identity and body theft in a Black Sun orgy, was rejected as “too posh” for Habbo Hotel’s teenage British isometric citizens, and the list goes on.

all very compelling and relevent social experiences with lots of vaguely defined potential, all ultimately bookmarked under “Leisure.” your telephone serves a far more productive and efficient virtual space.

Maybe I’m using SecondLife in a more generic sense – more of a metaverses in general thing, rather than Linden Labs’ implementation. It’s definitely more of a commentary on the activities, rather than the tools.

And I completely agree about people killing presentations, rather than powerpoint. The analogy is apt. Bullet-point shovelware is so common because it’s easy. The more creative and powerful Lessigian style presentations are hard. They take a lot of time. They take energy and creativity. Yes, there has been some of that in SecondLife/Metaverses, but much of what I’ve seen is more akin to shiny shovelware with cool avatars.

The Play2Train stuff is really impressive. That’s the kind of thing we need to be doing, not stream-and-chat.

Your point is well taken though – I should not (am not?) blame the tools, it’s the implementation and lack of creativity that sucks.

@charles: I guess I’m just being cranky, when every “SecondLife in Education” session I’ve seen is basically the same sit-down-and-watch kind of event. If the intro was more of a “here’s the cool simulation/interaction/whatever” instead, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But for people coming into it, all they’re shown is how easy it is to reproduce the existing classroom in a metaverse. Boring. Let’s push a little harder, and drop people into a full-blown simulation, or onto another planet, or inside a nuclear reactor, or something that isn’t just a reproduction of something they see every day in FirstLife.

@davidicus: 15? really?

For now, I look at teaching in SL, and, of course I bring my background and biases of what good teaching is all about and then expect to transport into SL what I’ve found to be successful in the past. 

It seems likely to me, however that further innovations will occur within SL and disrupt traditional thinking like mine so that the best way to teach in SL will look nothing like it does in real life, or how I now imagine it to be in SL.

The point for me now is not to ‘get it’ but to look and get a sense of the possibilities. My time spent in SL typically passes quickly as I am immersed in discussions and exploration — exactly the kind of experiences that I’d like my students to have in my courses.

I find it most significant that I readily strike up quality discussions with individuals in SL. The avatar experience seems to closely parallel real life communication more than other forms of Internet communication. This has been true for me regarding individuals whom I know inworld as well as those whom I meet happen to meet inworld. It seems likely to expect that a platform that readily enables good discussion will enable good education.

Isn’t it a bit placed to place the blame on the technology rather than the limited imagination/use of what people are doing with it? The Second Life architecture does not force you to sit passively in rows listening to some droning presenter.

Or framed differently for another easy target (http://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/502785605/) PowerPoint does not kill presentations… People do.

I too am itchy bored and doing other things when the mode is sit back and listen, whether it is in Second Life or any F2F conference. Whats the diff?

Done differently are:
* The stuff Global Kids do in SL is very active mode – http://www.holymeatballs.org/2007/05/post_1.html or http://www.holymeatballs.org/2007/05/slteen_grid_unification_debate.html#more
* Performance art like ZeroG Skydancers http://sl.nmc.org/2006/11/30/skydance/
* Mock Trials http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/04/30/josh-wolf-mock-trial-wrapup/
* Play2Train http://play2train.hopto.org/

Break the mold, ditch the talk and slide shuffle. But its not fair to blame the tools because I, as a sloppy builder, have leaning walls and leaky sinks.